


Pins and Needles

by stitchy



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sewing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small gesture can reveal greater intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pins and Needles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xNARAxCounte55x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xNARAxCounte55x/gifts).



Bilbo tapped out the remains of his pipe, and tutted. How to bide his time until the dwarves were ready to continue on? They had set up a makeshift forge the previous night, so that they might do some repairs in the morning before returning to their journey. Now the majority of them either sat with sharpening stones in hand, or stood shirtless- beating away with hammers amidst the smell of iron and a haze of steam. Repairs oughtn't take too long, they kept on top of their weapon's maintenance- _Repairs!_ That'd take some time.

Hopping down from the stump he had situated himself atop, he wandered back over to the camp where there was a clothesline strung between two trees. Bilbo plucked the smallest shirt off the line, his own, of course- the only spare clothing he'd thought to grab that insane morning he'd taken off after a pack boisterous, freeloading, delusional dwarves and a mad gray wizard. He gathered a small leather scrap from his pack, and a spool of thread Ori had given him a few days previous, calling it "string"... which always made Bilbo wince and then feel like a self important snob. He picked a between needle he liked the feel of from its leathery holster and bit a length of thread from the spool. He deftly threaded the eye and wriggled a loop over his finger, like his mother had taught him- making a fat little knot.

The only damage to his shirt was a bit of a popped seam in the back of the armscye- easily taken care of with a tidy little blanket stitch. He remembered his adoring mother, Belladonna, who would always mend the busted knees of his trousers when he was an untidy little faunt. There had been patch layered behind patch after patch- he hadn't been very forgiving to his clothes when he rushed about brambles, up trees, scrambling over rocks and fences every chance he got.

He tied off the stitch to the inside of the garment, as was proper, though he was certain none among the dwarves would notice or care for the professionalism he insisted upon with such things. Snapping his teeth through the excess thread, he eyed the clothesline again. He didn't feel quite done. There must be another abused garment he could at least use up the rest of his thread on.

His eye was drawn to the fluttering blue in the middle of the line. There was a one shoulder fairly shattered by the rigors of its owner. He tugged it down with some effort- he hadn't been the one to set up the clothesline, and it was hardly in his hobbity reach. Bilbo sat down next to his pack again, and dug around the contents of the bottom for the so called "handkerchief" he'd been given. It may not be worthy of noses, but it'd make a fair patch. In his lap, Bilbo considered the tunic under his hands. The yoke had a fine bit of geometric patterning woven into cloth in subtle stripes. It didn't surprise him as much as it might have earlier in the journey. Though crude seeming at initial glance, the tunic- like the dwarves he was becoming so fond of- had a deeper complexity and a rather noble aspect that could be discovered with further inspection. He looked up now, toward the company members who were still working away on their gear. Who's was this?

With a gulp he realized the color matched to the breeches of the one dwarf he'd wasted more time troubling himself about than he cared to admit. Thorin's back was to him- long hair tied back with a strip of leather. Bilbo considered that he really couldn't do enough in attempt to stay in the good graces of their company leader, and the gesture of mending his tunic couldn't possibly be an affront. He ripped a swatch of the handkerchief apart from the rest and flapped open the hem of the garment, snaking his hand up to the shoulder from the inside. He bid himself desperately not to imagine drifting his hand up into the shirt while it was occupied, a little too late.

_Best not to ever attempt that,_ he thought, miserably. Bilbo hadn't had much success lately in curbing these sorts of wonderings. Many a night he'd reprimanded himself for such thoughts, forcing himself instead to try to remember the name and placement of each herb in his garden, or the order in which he learned every recipe his mother had handed down to him. His attempt at discipline never seemed to contain his thoughts for long however. After all, the dwarf king smelled of some of his favorite herbs- and he feverishly wished he might have been able to showcase some of his best cooking to Thorin. It was one of the only skills he felt any kind of confidence in- and, he considered- one of the tried and true methods of winning affection in the Shire. This always left him with a prickly feeling in his ears. _Push it down_ , he thought.

He started the mending by squaring the patch behind the distressed tear, and taking his needle and thread for a lap around the perimeter. Belladonna had always done a very sweet thing- he remembered. She would baste in the patch, whip stitching together the fray and the studier new piece, and then instead of simply tying off in the corner, she would embroider a little mark. it was half a "B", for Bilbo, Baggins, Belladonna, and even his father Bungo- and half a heart. They always looked so similar in her handwriting, the capital "B" of her name, and the little "♡" she'd always sign her notes with. _"Gone to market, please mind the dishes while I'm out, ♡ Mother"_ and the like.

Bilbo looked down at the shoulder of the tunic again, and _blast_. He had been reminiscing and had gone into automatic while he'd worked. A little "B" heart sat innocently in the corner of the mending. He didn't have the heart to remove it, nor- he realized- a small enough blade to rip out the stitch. A throat clearing above him made his focus jerk upward suddenly, and his ears did their pins and needley trick again.

"Burglar," said Thorin, almost like a question. He looked down at Bilbo with slightly narrowed eyes. "Are you.. Are you mending my clothes?"

"Y-yes, that would be the case," responded Bilbo, schooling himself to choose between either looking the dwarf in the face, or to continue looking down at the mending, not the naked chest between those two points. He chose to meet Thorin's eye, quickly.

...♡...

"And is it customary in the Shire to take someone's clothing while their back is turned?" He was trying to jest, but he saw the look of panic on the hobbit's face, and immediately continued- "I mean to say, that is a kind gesture. A generous surprise."

Bilbo's face relaxed by an increment, "You're welcome.Err- Here," He bit the remainder of the thread away, tucked the needle back into it's home, and held the tunic up to the standing dwarf.

Thorin instantly dropped to his knees in front of the sitting hobbit, and took the offered garment, and a few of the hobbit's fingers in hand. The brush of the much softer digits under his own gave him a momentary feeling like static electricity in his hands, and then his scalp. _No- more like pins and needles_ , he decided. "You're done a spot of embroidery here," he noticed. _A little "B" ? Perhaps a-_

"Oh!" squeaked the hobbit, "I- I learned to mend and sew at my mother's knee, as it were- and she always did that when she patched my trousers," he explained. "She said it was a little- a little heart for courage. Ripped trousers almost always came with skinned knees, after all." He gave a tiny, experimental smile in only one corner of his mouth.

Thorin was stirred by this little gesture, though he doubted the hobbit realized what a near-sacred thing it was to make and mend clothing for another by the reckoning of dwarven culture. Very few male dwarves could do more than surgically close a rip in cloth- ordinarily a handworked garment was a favor done by a mother, sister, or... partner. But then again he hadn't been completely oblivious (as his fellows might think) to the small gestures, _affections_ , he thought- that the hobbit had been affording him since their reconciling on the Carrock peak. He considered this notion, and decided to test the theory.

"You would give me a little heart, burglar?" he very nearly purred. Thorin observed the hobbit take a sharp little breath. Perhaps he did have a little courage to put into an admittance the sentiment Thorin privately hoped for.

"I would. A hobbit heart is rather little, I must presume."

Thorin leaned his head toward Bilbo, and pressed his forehead to the hobbit's. "Then I would have it."

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> The lovely lovely [Sarahtheartiste](http://sarah-the-artiste.tumblr.com/post/65770349439/burglar-said-thorin-almost-like-a-question-he) <3 made a fanart for this piece and you should check out her and her tumblr, stat.


End file.
